Wow:
In total, in 1998, American taxpayers spent $24 billion to incarcerate over 1 million nonviolent offenders, many of whom had either never been locked up before or who had committed no prior acts of violence.
Our nonviolent prison population, alone, is larger than the combined populations of Wyoming and Alaska.
The European Union, a political entity of 370 million8 , has a prison population, including violent and nonviolent offenders, of roughly 300,000. This is one third the number of prisoners which America, a country of 274 million, has chose to incarcerate for just nonviolent offenses.
The 1,185,458 nonviolent offenders we currently lock up represents five times the number of people held in India's entire prison system, even though it is a country with roughly four times our population.
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